Mrs Malfoy
by She's a Star
Summary: Narcissa said she would buy the flowers herself.' Narcissa reflects. A vignette inspired by Virginia Woolf's 'Mrs. Dalloway'.


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Mrs. Malfoy

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by She's a Star

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Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to the all-divine J.K. Rowling. Mrs. Dalloway, of which this is sorta/kinda based on (and there are a few altered lines from it in here) was written by Virginia Woolf.

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Author's Note: I've been wanting to write a Narcissa fic for quite sometime, and this just popped into my head a few days ago. :) It's a bit odd, but I like it.

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Dedication: To Bohemian Storm. :) Happy birthday! (Well, in a week or so. ;-D)

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Narcissa said she would buy the flowers herself.

The servants rushed around the house, a sense of panic in the air as they hurried to prepare for that evening's party. Malfoy Manor looked even more vast and impressive than usual, with the suits of armor gleaming newly-polished silver, the rugs washed and aired out, and what seemed hundreds of glowing silver-and-green fairies zooming through the air. 

There was much to be done, and she figured that the servants already had enough on their hands.

Yes, she would buy the flowers.

She studied herself in the mirror as she prepared to leave the house and run down to the flower shop around fifteen minutes from the manor. The looking glass revealed her familiar flawless beauty - her blonde hair was perfectly styled, her skin flawless, her blue eyes cold as ice. 

She vaguely remembered when her eyes had used to sparkle. Oh, she'd used to laugh and live and think the world to be such a beautiful place.

Then she'd met Lucius.

He had been handsome, intoxicating, charming but not without a sort of chilling malice. He hadn't changed over the years; she doubted he ever would.

And then there was Draco - fifteen years old, and just like his father. There was no doubt that her son would relive Lucius' life rather than leading his own.

And he really didn't seem to mind.

She narrowed her eyes at her own reflection, then grabbed a tube of red gloss from her vanity and applying it carefully to her lips. She didn't wear the shade much anymore...crimson had long ago been replaced by frosty pink glosses. Lucius didn't like red: it was too passionate, too vivacious. 

He liked everything cold, resigned.

Narcissa Malfoy didn't love her husband - no, she'd never truly loved him. When they'd first met, she'd certainly been infatuated with him. After they were married, she was a bit intrigued by him. When Draco was born, she'd thought that she was beginning to understand him. Partly, she did. But there were things about Lucius that she would never understand.

Now, she respected him, more because his mere presence seemed to demand respect rather than that she actually _felt_ it. And she wanted him - there was something intoxicating about making love to him. His kisses seemed to turn her heart to ice; his caresses froze her blood. There had never been fire between them, and she liked it that way.

He was truly heartless, and she knew it. She knew he didn't care for her - merely kept her around because he wanted a pretty little gem of a wife to hang off his arm at social occasions. He was, she believed, purely evil....he didn't love anything or anyone, and he never had. He didn't even truly care about his beloved Dark Lord, not really. He only sought power. He was composed completely of a need for power. 

Power frightened her.

She glanced at herself once more before walking down the stairs and outside with her distant, frosty sort of grace that she'd perfected over the years. She knew that it would be quicker, more convenient for her to apparate, but she felt like walking.

The air was sweet and warm, and it made her uncomfortable. She was so accustomed to the cold that anything else never failed to shake her a little, to unsettle her. Everything that surrounded her was chilled.

The sun beamed down upon her as she walked, and she could vaguely remember her childhood, where she'd spent hours in the sun, playing and giggling and _living_.

She vaguely missed it, living.

Oh yes, she existed.

But Narcissa Malfoy did not live.

"My dear."

She turned; Lucius was standing in the doorway, watching her with his ever-present knowing smirk.

"Yes?"

"Where are you going?"

"To get flowers," she informed him lightly.

"Flowers?" he asked, taking a few lazy steps toward her. 

"Flowers," she repeated, nodding. "For tonight. The party."

"Ah, yes," he said. He had approached her now, and placed his hands lightly on her hips. "The party. Darling, why do you trouble yourself with it? It's servants' work."

"I felt like getting out," she informed him loftily, and realized at once that it was suffocating her. Her life. A prison, a stream of countless days that meant nothing, in which _she _was nothing but Lucius Malfoy's beautiful wife.

"Well, then," he said, and his cold gray eyes flashed before he leaned down and lightly kissed her neck. She knew that he did it to spite her somehow, to hurt her, to mock her; as though reminding her that he would never really care.

She needed no reminders.

He left a trail of kisses along her throat, and she shivered involuntarily: for a moment she couldn't breathe - it felt as though his lips left a trail of ice.

"Are you cold, my dear?" he asked, smirking at her. His voice was silky and chilling and malicious, like silk and a thousand tiny needles all at once.

She shook her head. "No, no, I'm fine." 

He smirked at her. He knew that she was never fine anymore. He knew that he had destroyed her, and he liked the idea.

"What kind of flowers would you like?" she asked. "Anything in particular?"

He paused as though considering, then announced, very softly, "Roses."

And a flash of something foreign ran through her - something dangerous and daring, something that she thought had died years ago.

"Red?" she asked lightly, nonchalantly.

He narrowed his eyes - he hated red, and he knew that she knew it. His fingers encircled her thin wrist, and he twisted it for a moment, as though daring her to cry out in pain.

Her face remained expressionless.

Smirking, he let go of her wrist and responded, "Black."

"Black," she repeated softly. 

He nodded, then turned and disappeared into the house.

And suddenly she wanted to cry, though she knew she wouldn't - Narcissa hadn't cried in years, nor had she wanted to. But everything seemed so utterly pointless, so helpless, filled with the pain of the unlived life.

She walked with her head up, her shoulders rolled back, her feet taking such smooth steps that it seemed she glided like some sort of ethereal goddess. She grew closer to the florist's shop, to the flowers...

The black roses.

She hated black. Black and death and anguish and pain and heartlessness and everything that her husband thrived on. She wanted red roses; she wanted to see colors again, to _feel_ passion and anger and true emotion.

She pushed the door open and stepped into the florist's shop. It was nearly empty, and the clerk gave her a quick half-smile. She responded with an icy nod, then walked over to the display of roses. At the end, bouquets of a dozen ebony roses seemed to call her, wanting to torture her with their morbid sort of finality.

And then she studied the red roses.

And very slowly, with shaking fingers, she picked up a single red rose. Her fingers hungrily caressed its silky petals as her eyes drank in their dark, rich, creamy crimson. She closed her eyes, allowed the sickly sweet scent to take over her senses. And then her ring finger slipped, and an intense stinging seemed to shoot through it. She shook a bit, inspected her finger at once.

A tiny, perfect bead of crimson blood had appeared, contrasting beautifully with the pale alabaster of her hands.

This, this passion, this perfection, this glorious beauty that she hadn't witnessed in so long...

She wanted to _live_, she wanted the petals _and_ the thorns, she wanted to live and ache and cry and smile and love and hate.

But she knew it was too late. She did not live. She merely existed.

And so she traced her finger lightly across one silky petal before setting the rose down and walking over to the black ones. She picked up a bouquet without looking at it, then paid wordlessly.

And as Narcissa Malfoy stepped outside, she realized that she wanted nothing more than that red rose.

And she knew that all she would ever have was black.

She began to walk back to her prison, her endless torment; back to the life that held her forever trapped in its heartless extravagance.

Her soul ached, her heart screamed for something else, anything else as she walked back slowly, a perfect beauty clutching a dozen black roses.

This was what she hated; life; longing; this moment of June.


End file.
